Oswald Avery

Oswald Avery (21 October 1877-20 February 1955) was a Canadian-American physician and researcher who, alongside Erwin Chargaff, proved that DNA was the genetic material in 1944.

Biography
Oswald Avery was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1877, and his family moved to the Lower East Side of New York City when he was ten. While working at the Rockefeller University Hospital, he decided to repeat Frederick Griffith's experiment on bacteria, but first separate out the broken-up components of viruent bacteria cells into fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and nucleic acids. He then saw which of the components was able to do the transformation, discovering that the nucleid acids transferred the information. He then took enzymes, attempted to destroy the nucleic acids, and did not get the transformation when he combined the bacterias. Therefore, he was able to deduce that the nucleic acid was the transformative agent, but he was hesitant to publish his idea until 1944. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, but members of the committee who still believed that protein was the transformative agent refused to confer the award upon him. He died in Nashville, Tennessee in 1955.